Four Hip-Hop Classics from Guru of Gang Starr’s Catalog

Guru Scratchin’ a vinyl record on Full Clip. Is this trademark of HipHop a dying art?

Here’s a bit of analysis of what I believe to be Underground Hip Hop Classics. They have other (such as: Full Clip, Mass Appeal, Above the Clouds with JFK and JFK2LAX) classics too, but I chose these four, which punched me in the smacker a scintilla more than other scattin’ ballistic-ally charged ions of word matter, scratchin’ madness and sampled pusillanimous panoply. No matter, ON WITH SHOW!

JUST TO GET A REP

DJ Premier and Guru together on the HipHop Classic video, Just to Get a Rep.

Guru says things as a matter of fact, but these kids see the gold chains and want a piece of the cheese for themselves. Kids scopin’ out richer brothers for robbery. Wants the loot, but wants to pull himself up by his boot straps and get a reputation. And back around the way, he’ll have the chain on his neck, claimin’ respect, just to get a rep.

This has the feel of an actual scene in the papers. Guru lays out the lines like a newspaper man. The last verse has ten brothers surrounding a poor kid to get his rings and a Rolex. A kid named Shorty pulls out a 38 and decides to pop the poor kid just for macho kicks. The black and white video does it justice. Is that the Brooklyn Bridge in the distance? Not from New York, sorry!

TONZ ‘O’ GUNZ

Scratchin’, bass a thumpin’, & sampled siren ‘gainst Guru tellin’ it like it is. It’s like you need to have steel just to feel relaxation. Don’t mince his words. Need guns in the ghetto to protect yourself. Tons o’ guns real easy to get. Tons o’ guns bringing nothing but death. Eerie pathos to the siren sample, with a tat-to-tat-at-tat backdrop flow texture riveting through. Guru’s like a reporter from the Projects paintin’ the scene blow by blow, automatic gunfire sprayin’ the projects as we watch dumbfounded from the suburban sidelines.

22’s 25’s 44’s 45’s, Mack elevens ak’s taking mad lives. I remember what it was like in the early 1990s. I would hear automatic gunfire awake me in the night, from my bed, an apartment in the Fair Park District of Dallas. Things were comin’ apart from gang violence. Guru just explainin’ what he sees, no more. Bloods and Crips invade Dallas ’bout ’92? No phony baloney here-black & white hip hop, real vinyl scratchin’, chromium guns piled high to the sky. Smell of gunpowder oozin’ from ya speakers, the strong r getting’ stronger & the weak r getting’ weaker (Guru rubbin’ off on me!).

YOU KNOW MY STEEZ

By 1998, when Moment of Truth was released, Hip-Hop had gotten a bit commercial for Guru. He reclaims his throne as the ruler of this genre, with power and braggadocio, oh so clever, flowin’ with natural rhymes that roll out like silk off his prodigious tongue. So as I have in the past, I whup ass droppin lyrics that be hotter than sex and candlewax. This is legitimate Hip-Hop; a smooth R & B keyboard sample with pulsing beat throbs ‘gainst liberation lines.

Off the track, that’s what Guru is saying here. On the microphone you know that I’m one of the best yet, Some punks, ain’t paid all of their debts yet. It’s like he holds the Gospel, Man! Style more tangible, and images more real. For some time now, I’ve held the scrolls and manuscripts. Too many DJs and MCs, false prophets of Rap crowdin’ in on Guru. Just protecting his territory; legacy preserved from the stool I’m sittin’ on!

ROBBIN HOOD THEORY

A play on words, yes. Guru gets heavy on this one (from The Moment of Truth). Wants to level society of corruption. Squeeze the juice out, of all the suckers with power, and pour some back out, so as to water the flowers. Devilish forces are ruining the black community. Guru takes a militant stance much like Malcolm X, and wants to purge these exploiters from his culture. He wants control of his art too; hip-hop is gettin’ polluted (1998) with Greedy Suckers.

Guru extols himself here, he’s a savior for his community. His creativity with words can liberate his Brothers. Design my thoughts like a sculpture. Guru is a Donatello with words. He’s a Pied Piper for the oppressed. I’m sent to be, leadin’ the army of the century. By this theory, it’s okay to rob the rich, if you give back to poor. Slower pensive rhymes against DJ Premier’s loopin’ sample key-tones. Nothin’ short of nonchalance of street revolution.

This world is ours, that’s why the demons are leary, It’s our inheritance; this is my robbin hood theory…robbin hood theory.

UNDERGROUND HIP-HOP

New York hip hop is different from West Coast hip hop. Ya know this. We’ll see what the verdict is for serious students of hip-hop, I’m but a novice, but this isn’t cop-out Gangsta Rap! More organic. The form itself is on the decline. Gang Starr, as I see it, is a natural creative outburst that emerges forth from an unstable social condition that existed in the black community in the 1990s.

Guru in black and white rapping convictions with his baseball cap, on Just to Get A Rep. His bold style of Underground HipHop is the Real Thing, from the foot stool I rest on!

I like it much more than say, MC Hammer or Public Enemy. These songs are truthful, like news reports from the street. We will have to see how they fit into the Larger Picture of Hip-Hop? Gettin’ more distance now from its introduction (DJ Cool Herc started it off). But just like we had Underground in Rock, so we have Underground in Hip-Hop, with Guru and DJ Premier.